The Blood Gospel (Page 25)

“Blow the fissure.” She motioned to the pack on top and pictured the satchel below. “Kill them all.”

She intended to entomb the knight and his companions, to rebury the secrets here under tons of rock. And if Korza survived the blast, then a slow death trapped beneath all of that stone would be his fate.

For a moment it seemed that Tarek would disobey her order. Fury ruled him, stoked by all the blood. Then his gaze flicked to her neck. To the tattoo. He knew its significance better than any.

To defy her was to defy Him.

Tarek bowed his head once, like bending iron—then turned and folded into the night.

She closed her eyes, centering herself, but a low moan caught her attention, reminding her that she still had work to do.

The freckle-faced corporal named Sanderson knelt in the dust, the lone survivor of the massacre on the summit. He’d been stripped to the waist, his head yanked back by nails dug deep into his scalp by the remaining hunter at her side. This one—Rafik, brother to Tarek—was lean, all bone and malice, a useful tool in trying times.

She shifted closer, the soldier’s eyes tracking her.

“I have questions,” she said gently.

He only stared, trembling and sweating, doe-eyed with terror, looking so very young. She once had a brother very much like this one, how he had loved roses and chilled wine, but she had been forbidden from any contact with him after taking His mark. She had to cut away all earthly attachments to her past, binding herself only to Him.

Another loss she placed upon Korza’s shoulders.

She ran the back of her hand down the corporal’s velvety cheek. He was not yet old enough to grow a proper beard. Yet, despite his terror, she read an ember of defiance in his eyes.

She sighed.

As if he had any hope of resisting.

She leaned back and lifted an arm, casting out her desire.

Come.

The pair—she named them Hunor and Magor, after two Hungarian mythic heroes—were never far from her side, forever bonded to her. Without looking, she felt them push out of the darkness behind her, where they had been feeding, and pad forward. She held out a palm and was met by a warm tongue, a furry muzzle, and a low rumble like thunder beyond the horizon.

She dropped her hand, now damp and weeping with blood.

“They’re still hungry,” she commented, knowing it to be true, feeling an echo of that desire inside her.

The soldier’s eyes widened, straining against the unimaginable. Horror at what stood behind her quashed any further defiance.

She leaned very close. She felt his hot breath, almost tasting his anguish. She moved to his ear and whispered.

“Tell me,” she said, starting with a simple question, “who was that woman down there?”

Before he could answer, the night exploded behind her. Light, sound, and heat erupted from Masada’s summit, shaking the ground, turning darkness to day. Flames blasted out of the chasm, swirling into a cataclysm of smoke and dirt—closing what God had opened only hours ago. She intended to bring this entire mountain down to cover her tracks.

With the detonation, peace again settled over her.

She stared down at the corporal.

She still needed answers.

10

October 26, 5:14 P.M., IST

Masada, Israel

Heat scorched Rhun’s back, as hot as the breath of any dragon. He pictured the wall of flames rolling over the top of the sealed dark sarcophagus. But it was the sound that hurt the worst. He feared the concussive blast might crack his skull, fountain blood from his ears, and defile this once-sacred space.

Beyond their tomb, stone rained down near the entrance. Unlike the first explosion that had sealed the fissure above, this second one sought to destroy this very chamber.

Thus trapping them.

As fire and fury died down to a rumbling groan, he braced hard against the limestone sides of the tomb. It was fitting that he die in a sarcophagus—trapped as surely as he’d once sealed another behind stone. Indeed, he almost welcomed it. But the woman and soldier had not earned this fate.

He had hurled them both inside the coffin after the first explosion. Knowing this ancient crypt offered the only shelter, he had drawn the stone lid over them, using all of his strength, assisted only slightly by the soldier. If they survived, he did not know how he would explain such strength of limb. The code he lived by demanded that he let them die rather than allow those questions to be asked.

But he could not let them die.

So they crowded together in pitch darkness. He tried to pray, but his senses continued to overwhelm him. He smelled the wine that had once filled this box, the metallic odor of blood that saturated the remains of his clothing, and the burnt paper-and-chalk smell of spent explosives.

None of it masked the simple lavender scent of her hair.

Her heartbeat, swift as a woodlark’s, raced against his chest. The warmth of her trembling body spread along his stomach and legs. He had not been this close to a woman since Elisabeta. It was a small mercy that Erin was turned away from him, her face buried in the soldier’s chest.

He counted her heartbeats, and in that rhythm, he found the peace to pray—until at last silence finally returned to his mind and to the world beyond their small tomb.

She stirred under him, but he touched her shoulder to tell her to be still. He wanted them to wait longer, to be certain that the room had stopped collapsing before he attempted to shift the tomb’s lid. Only then would he know if they were entombed by more rock than even he could lift.

Her breathing slowed, her heart stilled. The soldier, too, calmed.

Finally, Rhun braced his knees against the bottom of the stone box and pushed up with his shoulders. The lid scraped against the sides. He heaved again. The massive weight moved a handsbreadth, then two.

Finally, it tilted and smashed to the floor. They were free, although he feared that they had only traded the small cell for a larger one. But at least the temple held. The men who had dug out this secret chamber had reinforced its walls to hold the tempestuous mountain at bay.

He stood and helped Erin and Jordan out of the sarcophagus. One glowstick had survived the blast and cast a dim glow into the room. He squinted through scorching dust to the tomb’s entrance.

It was an entrance no more.

Earth and rock sealed it from floor to ceiling.

The other two coughed, holding cloths to their faces, filtering the fouled air. They would not last long.

The soldier clicked on a flashlight and shone it toward the doorway. He met Rhun’s eyes and stepped back from him, his face dark with suspicion and wariness.

The woman cast the beam of a second flashlight around the ruined chamber. A layer of dust covered everything, transforming the dead bodies to powdered statues, blunting the horror of the slaughter.